[368 words]
Power was off at the house and church building (and other places) Sunday night until about eleven o’clock Monday morning. Inconvenient! I came into work Tuesday morning ready for a day of working on sermon and class notes and found that the power had knocked out the church internet and phone lines. Inconvenient! Worked for several hours trying to get things righted, using up time I wanted to use for what I considered more important things. Inconvenient!
You get the point, life can be inconvenient at times. We plan out our day or week or month and things change and catch us off guard and we are frustrated because of inconvenience. How could people (or life) be so uncaring and inconsiderate?
Of course, James shares with us that we really should know better. “Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.’ But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil” (Jas. 4:14-16).
But let’s put the shoe on the other foot for a moment. How do we react when we are inconvenienced? I admit I didn’t handle the situation Tuesday as I should have. Things worked out and everything was working before I left for the day, but my frustration level was near the boiling point. Why? I must have thought more highly of myself than I should. Isn’t that what James pointed out as he drew attention to our arrogance?
And dealing with pride and arrogance, do we sometimes do things based on what we think we have a “right” to do? Do we sometimes show the Lord an arrogance because we should be able to worship as we desire? We should be able to dress for worship to be comfortable (and not inconvenienced for a few moments!). We should be able to do as we like, because we can!
I am so glad that Jesus humbled (inconvenienced) Himself to the point of death on the cross for me (Phil. 2:5-8)!
Paul Mowrer
Monticello church of Christ
Monticello, AR